violist

UA is not supposed to do this, either. OP was sold a bill of goods;
two bills of goods, actually.

fastair

I've heard of no change to the "board at your leisure" statement.

That said, there are a few exceptions. 1) Some UAX gates at ORD don't have the physical layout/room for a red carpet. If you don't board early, then there is only 1 line, and GS/1K/F still have the same line as everyone else. Lack of a red carpet does not mean "push people out of your way and get to the front." I've rarely seen anyone do this, but it happens, usually with the comment "I saw no red carpet so I shouldn't have to wait in line." 2nd, when the red carpet stanchions are closed, don't open them yourself. We will open them as soon as we can if you come up, but if we are tagging bags for a party of 5 with 5 BP's in hand, wait a second, and allow us to open them. Crowd control barriers are not self-service items, but are managed by the agent.

AFAIK, sending you to the end of a line when there is a red carpet is in bad form.

msmith387

As a 1P on 1st class tickets I've had this problem a few times. Twice it happened in the dreaded A gates of Dulles getting on CR7s, which wasn't a big deal. Then once at MSP, which was pretty embarrassing. After being scolded and sent to the back of the line by the GA they mentioned something about it only being for early boarding etc... sent an email to 1P voice, standard apologetic response without clarifying the process, but they gave me an e-cert so I didn't push for clarification.

karung99

This is the correct way to handle it, OP might look very young to be 1K or F is already all board.

compwhiz

I've never been turned down from the red carpet, no matter when I chose to board. 1KVoice is definitely wrong, and the fact that 1K customer service can write something like that to OP is VERY frustrating. The only way to top it is to have someone at UA give that same answer to GS - that way you know its all downhill from there

fsfsfsfs

At least you received a response from 1Kvoice. I haven't received replies for my last 3 emails (sent 22, 17, and 5 days ago -- the 5-day-old email was to ask about what happened to the previous emails.).

halls120

I agree. I've never encountered a GA telling me I can't use the red carpet once general boarding has begun.

exerda

Slightly OT, but I finally got a couple of responses after follow-up e-mails, with sincere apologies for the delay "as you can expect, this is a very busy time of year for us." I'm quite sure they're right about that... though it would be nice if the 1K Voice had an auto-escalation system where unanswered e-mails after X number of days go to a supervisor and up the chain (like any respectable customer service group has).

expressboy

I have always been able to board at leisure even after pre-boarding was complete

HSaxa

I've had the same problem just once... and it happened at LAX. Maybe that station is mis-informed about this? (or just lazy). As for 1K voice, I'd keep pushing them.

Fredd

When we've arrived after boarding has started, GAs have always taken a moment to undo the rope and let us through. I'd have thought they were universally trained by now and I'd definitely be annoyed to be wrongly identified by an employee as a jerk demanding treatment he doesn't deserve.

OTOH if it's a really short line, i.e. fewer than 10 and it's Boarding Group 4, we'll just go to the back of it because at that point we'll be standing in the jetway anyway and we've lost the best chance to stow our rollaboards in empty overheads. At some point IMHO the rouge rug would be ostentatious and fairly pointless - most would agree if there were, say, only 2 in the regular line.

How long was the line you tried to bypass, i.e. all XX of the passengers in the regular boarding line who glared at you?

winstonbentley

The best way to remedy the situation in my opinion is to color code the actual boarding passes. IE Plats (1K), Gold, Silvers and General members have their own colored boarding passes. That way everyone can see that you are a 1K for example, and that you have certain privileges. If some ignoramus questions you (pax) glare at them, flash your boarding pass and simply say 1K. They probably wont know what you are talking about but when they see that your ticket looks like the golden ticket from Willy Wonka, they will put 2+2 together and realize that you are a somebody with the airline.

FriendlySkies

I know some of the international airlines do this to differentiate between F/C/Y.. F might be red, while C is blue, and then Y is green. This might work with more of the WN crowd, that seem to mob the gate area when GS/1K, etc boarding is called..

mauiUAflyer

I had an issue at a DEN UX gate (flying down to COS). I got to the gate as they were boarding coach, and stood on the red carpet. She ignored me until she had finished boarding coach. Then she boarded me. "Oh", she said, "I just thought you wanted to ask me a question". I was standing there holding my BP...

FriendlySkies

She should have just looked over at you, instead of ignoring you